Yoo hoo. Just popping up on a Wednesday to send you a postcard!
The great summer cool down has begun in California. I’ve been working in the garden planting some shrubby sunflowers, a dahlia, and some purple salvias. There’s always something that needs to be repotted. Geranium cuttings to start in fresh pots. Long grass to pull. It’s never ever tidy or finished. The plant nation of Moss Cottage are their own masters and commanders. I mostly walk around and look at everything – keep the bird baths full of water. The back patio needs tables dragged out of the garage and cushions to plump the chairs. I’m on it. Slow as a snail and just as meandering.
School is out in 3 weeks. I drive to the classroom under grey skies with the heat on low. The last evaluation of my long teaching career was finalized a few weeks ago. While the students were taking very important, high-stakes testing I may have ordered a new wig or browsed the ebay thrift bargains for a new LLBean button-up gingham shirt for the Cotswolds. Fridays is Monopoly day in class and myself and 6 rotating players become real estate tycoons for 40 minutes or so while the rest of the class play games and entertain themselves. In addition to learning important things related to the common core standards, we are doing timed sketches of each other, and discussing the merits of various materials to be used in constructing time machines.
I’m nearly finished with my first needlepoint sheep which is going on the front of my sketchbook journal. Sister and I are comparing hats (see mine in photo above), bags, sketchbooks, waterproof shoes, underpants, sunscreens, and luggage. It’s been 6 years since we took a trip out of the country and we’re rusty, but terribly excited. We are now in our 60’s not our 50’s. Our navigational skills are good and our legs and knees and hips are in good working order for all the walks we plan to take from village to village and pub to pub. We’re rented our chariot and are crossing our fingers and toes that we get a tiny automatic model. Naturally, we’ll be making reel after reel on Instagram where I haven’t been active in months. I hope I remember how to do it!
And one more thing. It’s been almost 2 years exactly that I brought Iris and Otto Moss home. They follow me from room to room and demand to be pet. I am their servant in all matters.
Enough about me! Do fill the comments with news of your worlds. I want and expect details and stories and lots of run-on sentences. Let me peer into your life a bit.
May you be happy, safe, healthy, and embarking on great adventures in your own homes and gardens. I await news from afar.
xo
Mary Ann you look fabulous! Have you lost weight? I am trying but it’s not wanting to leave my body! 😂. I still am preparing a box of papers and such for you. Talk about moving at a snails pace! I’ll check to make sure you’re back before I send the box.
Oh, so love the hat! a bittersweet moment i am sure walking away from your history in the schools… best of luck in travels and new adventures.
you have inspired me to do mini floral portraits and landscapes, you continue to be an inspiration! K
What? Two years? Feels like Otto and Iris just moved in with you. Time flies, and I just learned that time is in fact a strange thing for my brain. Diagnosed with ADHD at the age of 47. Explains a lot. Depression. Anxiety. Why I always felt something was wrong with me and I couldn’t figure out what it was. Now I have therapy and medication and slowly my life changes. I feel a lot better. But I have a long way to go to figure out how to live my best life, now that I know!
Haven’t written a comment here for a long time. But you can be assured that I check in almost every week to see if news from LA have reached my little town in Germany!
I am going on a trip to Greenland in two months. Travelling just with my dad for the first time ever. My mom died in January. I miss her a lot, but it was the right time for her to leave. I was with her when she left, at home, in her own bed. It was getting harder and harder for all of us with her dementia getting worse very quickly. She was fully aware what was going on, afraid what would happen if we weren’t able to care for her at home anymore. No more suffering for her. And new adventures for my dad.
Until then I have my garden. Northern lights were dancing above me when the solar storm hit earth. Strawberries are big and red and delicious. Everything is growing fast right now. Even the slugs. They are after the young vegetables. I am willing to share, but they want it all, and I can’t allow that.
I can’t wait to read about your upcoming adventures!
You look amazing! I am so looking forward to your reels from England!!
My only news is I sold my house and moved into a “tin can” in Buellton. Big adjustment.
Have a creamed tea for me. xo Syd
‘Oh MAM, if only you knew how much and how often I think of you and all the creativity you helped me give myself permission to pursue! Taking almost all of your classes as soon as you released them, and still, all these years later, drawing inspiration and tweaking ideas and making making making. Thank you will never be enough to say to you!
Meanwhile, I’m in the joyous deep-end of creating my holiday presents for 2024. I’m making tiny journal ornaments! The pages are made from French and Italian book pages from 1804-1824. The handmade rag paper with its thick embossed printing is so hardy it makes wonderful pages and pockets but I confess to hoarding the pages that have a handmade watermark on them. I’m so curious about the paper makers and their mysterious symbols!
Fair winds to you and Sister on your travel adventures!
And I’d just love to do something to mark each month of your last year of teaching to celebrate your amazing career … hmmnn, we’ll have to think about this!
Mary Ann…. Thrilled to hear you’re retiring!
Just think of all the time you’ll have to travel!
I’m in the midst of planning my return to Venezia this fall… I love the prep/planning. Maybe we could meet up in Venezia? Would you like to return?
Working on getting myself in shape… the older I am the longer it’s taking… but I’m determined!
Working on images…setting up new iPhone and iwatch. Loving the watch, it’s a great motivator to get me moving more!
Linda,
I’d love to return to Venice and was planning a December trip, but decided to wait. I want to savor my Cotswolds trip before I rush onward to the next experience. I wish you many happy days there walking and exploring. Perhaps one day we will meet there. You never know! The apple watch fitness app is super motivating. I love to look at the maps generated and trying to close your rings is fun.
Hi Mary Ann,
Hope you and sister have a fabulous time in the Cotswolds! I just returned home from two weeks in Amsterdam and it was amazing! I do love to travel (well, not the actual travel part of it). Flying ain’t what it used to be. But we had a great time while there. So much to see and do.
Glad to hear about your retirement decision. I have also finalized the last day of my career and it is only 12 working days away. June 21st. Definitely counting it down.
As always love your pics and post. Most decidedly miss them when they are spaced far apart but of course you are out there doing the living and that’s the most important part. Stay safe and have fun! Share lots!
Oh Susan, I just loved Amsterdam and all the little villages I went to on public transportation. Would love to return there sometime. I agree about the getting there part of travel. Would prefer to blink and just be there! HAH! Happy retirement. I’m a year behind you. Can’t freaking wait. I’ll have less money coming in, but more freedom. A good exchange if you ask me.
Mary Ann–You look great, and slim, in your hat pic! Nothing much new around here, although I created a collage yesterday. I’ll put it on your Facebook post. Haven’t done much arting lately except for that. Been doing a lot of streaming on Britbox & PBS Masterpiece. American TV, except for the Good Doctor, doesn’t appeal to me in my elderly age — my husband is the same way except for a little news and a lot of sports. Wish I could go to the Cotswolds!
Deborah! I’ll go to Facebook to see your collage. Thanks for sharing.
I wish you could go to the Cotswolds too. I’ll do my best to post videos on INSTAGRAM.
xo
oh, you will deeply love the Cotswolds …. the flowers & lushness are bountiful
we lived there for 3 months in 1985 and revisited in 2017
don’t forget to visit Cornwall on a future visit, thats my favorite part of the UK….
then again, I have not visited Wales….
and thank you for your Educational Career …. it is super duper DIFFICULT to
teach in 2024 (note: using gentle words)
Holly,
What a great experience to have lived in the Cotswolds for a few months. Marvelous! I’m glad you got to return. Cornwall is on our list. I find I can’t process more than one place on an expedition. So it’s just a deep soak in the Cotswolds this time around. Wales seems so gorgeous!!!
It is unseasonably cool in Seattle. I haven’t been able to plant my tomatoes yet. The roses are finally blossoming and they smell amazing. The fat peonies as well. I’m reading Penelope Lively Life In A Garden & Unimaginable too as I think I want to grow my ability to imagine. I think I’m about 4 years from retirement and wondering if there’s a way to make those years both slow for deeper living and also hasten so as I can get to more of the fun stuff. I can’t wait see you and Sister on your travels
I’ve just turned the heat on and am wearing a hoody with the hood ON. Inside. The. House.
Roses and peonies and a good book. yes to all of that Tina. Are you still reading poems on IG? I haven’t been regular over there but I did love to catch you reading over there. Slow living. I’m for that.
In London this week and going to the Cotswolds tomorrow 5/25 for the day. First time in England from our home in Midwest Wisconsin!
Susan,
I’m thrilled for you. Keep me posted on your journeying. I’m right behind you.
I’ve gone to Cotswold & Cornwall twice. I thought it was magical-smuggling coves and people who did not want to bend to English authorities!
I am beyond excited. I am teaching a 3 part collage journaling session at public library starting June 1st. I am on a personal mission to introduce as many people as I can to collage as I believe it is healing. Had very stressful job & used collage to heal. Have followed you for many years and enjoy how you think. The best, Jessica
Jessica,
Lovely to hear from you and delighted that you are spreading your love of art and journaling to the world bit by bit. So important! So needed! Cornwall is on my radar for the next trip. It will be our first visit to England. Can’t wait! xo
I’m so glad for the postcard. Wish I were there! I’d help pet the kitties! And wow, wrap up on a year and a career is a big thing. Happy trails ahead. I’ve never picked up needle point, but my mom (now 96) did years ago. All roses. She did a few and left a few to be done. She’s not going to do them because her hands don’t cooperate as she’d like, so you may be the inspiration needed to point the needle to the flowers! My garden is doing well in the sun/gray/sun days. For a while the heat seemed to slow down my favorites, sweet peas! The bush was full, full, full of buds which just sat. Someone said I overwatered. But now, they seem to be flourishing again in the May Gray. I think I’ll see a huge harvest of the beauties soon. I have quite a line up of dahlias and two have begun flowering. American Dawn is a pretty salmon color with a purple center. It always amazes me when they’ve been sitting there since fall and remember how to come back and dazzle me with all those petals in the exact right spot. They fill in my wild garden set with roses and a few alstroemeria. Bloom central! I like your hat and treasure the trip to England with my Gran which included a day in the Cotswolds. I bought a series of books 3 or 4 filled with letters from Victoria to Albert and from Albert to Victoria. They were quite in love. I hope you and your sister have the best time yet. Yay for Monopoly and time machines. And thank you for the correspondence!
Oh yes I say to needlepoint roses your ma began all those many years ago. what a dear thing to have and finish. i adore dahlias and this dark leafed plant will be my first. Your garden must be spellbinding! The books sound wonderful and I love the idea of a long ago trip with your Gran. Love your note. Thanks for it, madame.
I’m happy to see you trying out your travel gear! Half the fun of travel is in the planning and anticipation.
I’m so excited to be able to follow along on this trip to the Cotswolds. I will say that after not traveling for a couple of years, it took us a little while to get our travel mojo back again. It’s kind of like stretching a muscle that has not been used in a while.
A little travel tip that has been very useful is Knix underwear. I wouldn’t travel without them! And a good pair of compression socks, but you probably already know that.
Just my unsolicited advice. Happy travels! Can’t wait to see that trip journal!
Cynthia thanks for the tips! Appreciate xo I will investigate the Knix underpants. Yes, the anticipation is lovely. woo hoo!
Oh you look fabulous Mary Ann! And you are retiring??! Yay!! You have worked so hard! I went down to 2 Days a week a year ago, and it’s life changing!
Always love your flower and travel photos, have a wonderful trip!
Next year will be my last, Sharon. I would accept 2 days a week if that were on offer instead of full retirement. Sounds perfect.
What is your Instagram name?
dispatchfromla or mary ann moss
You can find me under either and I think the link is somewhere on the blog..maybe down at the bottom…?
Thanks, Lori.
Hi!!
My husband and I just arrived in Edinburgh and unfortunately, it is pouring rain. Next week we will be in Vienna, and it looks like the weather will be nice. We have tickets to go see a Baroque concert in a palatial building. After Vienna, we are taking a river cruise down the Danube and ending up in Nice for a week. Then we are hosting Roxanne Evans Stout at a retreat in Southern France and the second week. My friends, Jane Bumar and Dayle Doroshow will be teaching with me.
Having a lovely time despite the rain. Hope you have a wonderful trip.
Annie
Goodness that’s a lot of getting about. Enjoy every minute. Your new knee must be fantastic, Annie xo
It’s always such a pleasure to hear from you! Thanks for the update, ~jan
I’m so looking forward to seeing the Cotswolds this summer via yours and sister’s eyes. I know you both will send pictures of all things big and small.
The cicadas are putting out quite a lot of noise over here in Alabama too. I try to go out and sit in the yard a bit everyday to activate the vitamin d. While I’m there I put my toes in the grass to see if grounding really works. All I know is that it’s rather peaceful feeling the breeze while gazing up at clouds floating overhead.
I’ve been to the sugar sandy beaches of the Florida panhandle already this season, came home and helped set up (and clean up after) my great niece’s wedding. One of my granddaughter’s is getting married early fall, so all that goes with that is on the agenda too.
Everyday, when the news of the world gets too heavy, I escape to my happy place (craft room) to make stuff. I’m still trying to organize things after my move….five years ago. After living in the same home for 30 years, I am finding it nearly impossible to find the best, rightest place for everything. I spend so much time hunting for what I know I have…somewhere.
Can’t wait to read all about your summer adventures!
Sorting and searching. It’s a great metaphor for life isn’t it? Keep those toes in the grass. Bare feet on earth must be grounding. Let it be so! YES to all things that bring us back to the real world which doesn’t exist in the news with all the talking heads. Your craft room sounds perfect. Nice to hear from you, Stephanie.
PS I look forward to your dispatches…..Mary
As a nearly “antique” with back issues, I am happy to r4eport that I have re3discovered stitching and……am making books of fabric and paper stuff. Lots I can do from my lovely electric chair. This last week I was able to pull together a communion service (with the Episcopal Priest) for we olde folks at THE HOME. This place, T.H., is what our kids are SO VERY THANKFUL FOR, with lots less me3ss to contend with when we die. I recently made the decision, that when I die, they (kids, friends and grands) are to come in, help them selves and the rest of the art supplies go to a place in Portland, Oregon, that helps teachers.
I love your idea for your art supplies, Mary. YES and yes. Thank you. Your fabric paper books must be so nice to touch and turn. May you have many happy days of pottering ahead at THE HOME. xoxo
The last evaluation of your long teaching career – does this mean you’re really headed soon towards retirement?! I so much hope so!! You are looking just beautiful in your gardening attire, and the plantlife is thriving. So happy you’ll be headed back across the pond on your wanderings – can’t wait to see your impression of it over here. Sending hugs from Edinburgh, the bonnie capital of Scotland.
thank you Jane, dear. Thinking of you in your wonder land there with your dearheart. Next year is my last.
Wonderful trip coming up, and even if I’m not going along, I will have fun watching you and Sister travel and…drive on the other side! You deserve the very best time. Hubby and I recently moved from the SanFrancisco Bay Area to the foothills of the Sierra Nevada mountains to Placerville, CA. What a delightful place to be and live!
The weather is wonderful and the people even better. Our son is here and our grandson nearby, so we’re seeing them more often and enjoying their company. After unpacking a multitude of boxes in our 1977 mobile home, we are settling in and looking out the windows at all these trees , birds, and squirrels who scamper through the trees like little monkeys-entertainment all the time. Our home is now painted off-white throughout and is bright and cheery. I’m sticking with the theme of a 1977 kitchen, complete with Harvest Gold ovens (remember those?)-I love it all. We discovered an organic, woman-owned farm here called 24 Carrot Farm and we get our veggies there.
The Olde Coloma Theater offers up melodramas, with an evil villain and damsel in distress ( you can holler at the villain), and the senior center has a knitting group and slow stitching…lots to choose from. We’ve done the right thing and it feels good. TIP: If any of you are moving, get rid of all the clutter you can beforehand! Good summer to everyone!
Dear Sandy,
How I love your long comment. Placerville in the foothills. mmmmm… sounds idyllic. I’m so glad you are happy there. And you’re in a mobile home! YES! I’m headed in the same direction in terms of future housing. Harvest gold appliances: yes! Remember the green ones? Don’t recall that color name. The evil villain and Carrot Farm sound like treasures. You’ve landed somewhere good. California’s gold as our dear Huell Howswer once said. I bet he had an episode on Placerville. I shall check!
As always, your photos are like a mini-vacation. Speaking of vacas – I’m excited about your trip to the Cotswolds! I’m sure you and your sister will have a wonderful time. Here in Middle Georgia it’s hot and sunny, and we are in our 6th week of 13-year-cycle cicada madness. The noise is very loud during the day, but the dogs love gobbling up any cicadas they can find on the ground. I’m collecting some wings (which are left after the bodies decompose) as they are transparent and iridescent and make me think of fairy wings.
I remember the cicada serenade well, both from Georgia and Virginia. Wish it would warm up in our Northwest.
Cicadas and heat and transparent fairy wings. Amen to all the things there in your world far away in the east. xo
Thank you for the years you taught and inspired young people! I saw something today on Instagram that might be of interest for you involving your international trip. The tip was to turn to the back page of your passport and use your phone to take a picture of the barcode. It will Expedite a replacement. Hope you don’t need it! Have fun!
Most excellent idea I will do that straight away! My current passport (new) has a 15 year old photo of myself that I happened to find when decluttering. It was an old school photo. I’m laughing now but may not when immigration stops me. We’ll see.
Am admiring the vibrant colors of the flowers in your beautiful garden, especially in your second photo: is that a geranium?! Exquisite. Coveting your patio area with the tiles and the planter with the Mexican tiles, curving sinuously in smooth and spectacular ways: such an inviting space. A garden is never truly finished, as you have observed: there is always something to do.
Have commenced work on a flower bed that is my largest yet: 15’x20′ approximately. Have been starting bulbs and perennials in pots, buying clearance plants and nursing them back to health, and looking for ways to make this project as affordable as possible. There is an established planting of shrubbery that survived the flood and provides foundation plantings. We survived a 500 year storm, so am proceeding with the hope that it should be a once in a life time event. A good portion of the yard was washed away, along with a sizeable amount of established maples, fruit trees, roses, etc. But like a phoenix, a new garden is rising from the “ashes”. Just planted lavender, and a rose topiary which I’ve always wanted. Am taking a day off as temperatures are rising and rain is a distant, unfulfilled promise. Looking forward to a chilly respite in a movie theater, mindlessly munching on popcorn, and giving my body a well deserved rest. The trees may be long gone, but their roots still traverse the flower bed with surprising tenacity. Wish I had a garden kitty for companionship, but instead am battling with a merciless armadillo that doesn’t appreciate my efforts to convert this wasteland to a French country garden. “Victory belongs to the most persevering” has become my motto: I will endeavor to persevere!
Looking forward to hearing about your travels and please: take a lot of photos!
That is a succulent flower and I can’t think of the name right now. The color is exquisite though. Your garden sounds absolutely divine. I shall need a tour. Please post one on the YOUTUBE for me. Hello to your armadillo friend. xo
I always enjoy your postcards and updates. You are adorable. I hope you and your sister have all the fun in England this summer.
I am just living in South Georgia near my folks helping them out this Summer. I moved here from Hawaii, so it is quite the change. But, I travel a ton
and garden and play fiddle with my band and sketch in my art journal as much as I can.
Have a great Summer.
Caroline,
Fiddling and sketching in South Georgia. Yes. Were you displaced by the fires in Hawaii of 2023? It’s quite a change you must miss your old home v.v. much.
Today is the last school day for our students—victory is mine! I’ve made it through my tenth year of teaching, I’ve beat the odds.
The weather is dreary but normal for spring here in coastal Alaska. Things are greening up and the hermit thrush and Wilson’s warbler sing at daybreak and dusk….so approximately at 3 am and 9 pm.
So looking forward to a lazy and yet totally productive summer full of LM Montgomery’s pearls slow slipping off the string.
Love your emails and updates like you were writing just to me. Can’t wait to see your presence and reels back on Instagram. Big fan of you and your sketchbook class; best wishes for your health and travel!
Thank you, Sara for the time of the warbler’s song. Those are the kinds of details I like. Coastal Alaska. I wonder if the waves crash as mightily up there as they do on our Pacific coast? I will close my eyes and imagine it.
Oh I do love the comment from Katie about the driving being uneventful! We CAN do different things. Iris and Otto just sent me a text from your phone… did you know they could do that? They said they want to come to the Cotswolds too and will be absolutely no trouble. I LOVE your v.v.v fashionable hat. I can be Gillian to your Ginger.
I am so excited to see the updates from your trip. My oldest daughter and I spent 3 weeks driving around the UK back in March and it was wonderful. We did get an automatic and driving was pretty un eventful. It took the first couple of days to get used to driving on the left but I will do it again. Also villages are so much closer that it seems and you should pop over to Oxford on your way either to or from the airport. It is beautiful.
Oh gosh, Katie, I do love hearing from you and about your trip to the UK a bit ago. So relieved to hear about the car. whew. We can’t wait. thank youuuuuu xoxo